Dieser Ozean im Weltraum ist 140 Billionen Mal größer als unserer.

The oceans cover about 70% of the Earth's surface, and we have only researched 25% of them. And now astronomers have discovered more water. A huge amount of water is floating in space, in a quasar that is over 12 billion light-years away. And we are not talking about a small puddle here. It is an incredible amount of water. About 140 billion times more than the total water in the oceans of the Earth combined. It is surrounded by a supermassive black hole, which is an incredible 20 billion times larger than our sun. This black hole is surrounded by a super-bright quasar, APM 08CY79PLAU5CYM55. It emits as much energy as you would receive if you were to collect 1,000 billion suns. I can't count that high. By the way, since light takes time to reach us, we see this quasar as it was when the universe was still young. Astronomers are certain that the newly discovered water reservoir is the farthest and largest we have ever found in space. Matt Bradford from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains that the environment of this quasar is so unique that it is capable of generating an incredible amount of water. Bradford's team has been studying the quasar and the supermassive black hole in its center for some time. They have found that while the black hole attracts the surrounding matter, it heats up the nearby gas and dust. This process has created a region that is filled with molecules that have never been observed in such a distance before. Quasars were first discovered over 50 years ago when telescopes detected extremely bright objects far into space. They are not ordinary stars. They shine from the centers of distant galaxies and are so powerful that they shine all the stars in their galaxy together. In the heart of each quasar is a gigantic black hole that is millions or even billions times heavier than the sun. When gas and dust swirl in the direction of the black hole, they heat up and release an incredible amount of energy. This makes quasars some of the brightest and most powerful objects we have ever seen in space. Looking at quasars is like looking into the past. The light we see from them today has been around for billions of years. It gives scientists an insight into what the universe looked like in the distant past. Quasars can help us understand how galaxies were created, how matter spread and how the first cosmic structures came together. Some quasars emit huge rays of super-fast particles. These stretch across space and can sometimes change entire regions of the universe. But let's go back to this space water or much more water vapor. When astronomers discovered it, it hovered around the quasar and stretched over a huge area that is hundreds of light-years wide. For comparison, one light-year is about 9.6 billion kilometers. Although the gas there is incredibly thin, in contrast to what we are used to on Earth, it is much warmer and denser than the gas that can be found in most other galaxies, including our own Milky Way. The temperature of this gas is about minus 52 degrees Celsius, and it is about 300 billion times less dense than the Earth's atmosphere. That sounds extreme. Even in space standards, this is unusual. Water vapor is not just another molecule. The fact that it exists near the quasar alone indicates that the area is regularly exposed to radiation. That is why gas heat remains unusual. To expand the mystery, astronomers also found carbon monoxide and other molecules. In other words, there is a lot of raw material hovering around. In the future, this gas could help the supermassive black hole to get even bigger. Up to six times its current size. But that is just one of many possible scenarios. Part of the gas could be pulled into the black hole, another part could form new stars, and another part could even be thrown into space. Finding water vapor in a quasar so far away means that the fundamental building blocks of the universe have existed for billions of years. Water is crucial to life as we know it, so its presence indicates so long ago that the ingredients for life existed much earlier than we might have thought. But water is not just important for life. It also plays a crucial role in the formation of stars and galaxies. When giant gas clouds cool down, water helps them to break down, which makes it easier for new stars to form. But how did astronomers discover this giant cloud of water? In 2008, Bradford's team began to search for water in space with the help of a special instrument called SAT-SPEC. It was connected to a 10-meter telescope in Hawaii. To check their results, they used another powerful tool, CARMA. This is a group of radio antennas in the mountains of South California. At the same time, another team was looking for water with a telescope in the French Alps. In 2010, the second team discovered a small hint of water in the distant quasar. It was just a tiny signal. After that, Bradford's group discovered more signals. This was the proof we needed to conclude that there was actually a huge amount of water out there. Now, our floating cloud of water vapor is not the only place where we have found water beyond Earth. Scientists recently made a huge discovery. It turned out that there are massive reserves of liquid water deep below the surface of Mars. Theoretically, future astronauts could use this water to support missions or even turn Mars into a permanent home. But of course there is a catch. This water is not in beautiful, accessible lakes or oceans. It is buried so deep inside Mars that we cannot reach it with the current technology. Scientists found this out by analyzing seismic data from the Mars Insight Lander. It recorded some strange seismic activities and the best explanation for this are these hidden water reservoirs. Mars still has some water today, mainly as ice or just below the surface. But this is nothing compared to the enormous amounts of water the planet had billions of years ago. The big question is, where did all this water go? Scientists believe it could have either escaped into space or wandered into the interior of the planet, where it could now be trapped as liquid reservoirs or ice deposits. The problem is, we have no way to measure how much water Mars has lost, so this question remains unanswered for now. The Earth's moon also has water, but not as you might think. Instead of lakes or rivers, the water of the moon is mostly frozen ice, which is unevenly distributed over the surface. Especially in the cold, shaded poles, there is a lot to find because they never get sunlight. A large part of this ice is also mixed with lunar soil and buried deep underground, which makes access to it extremely difficult. Then there is Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons. It is tiny, only 5.5 km in diameter. That's small enough to fit in Arizona. Hmm, I think we should try it. Anyway, when the Cassini probe of NASA reached Saturn, scientists expected Enceladus to be an empty, frozen world. Instead, they saw huge plumes of icy particles and steam, which erupted from geysers near the South Pole. This meant that a large ocean had to be hidden under its ice layer, embedded between the rocky core of the moon and the frozen surface. The fact that this ocean is active and constantly sends material into space makes Enceladus a first-class candidate for future explorations. We also have Europe, one of Jupiter's moons and one of the most promising places to search for extraterrestrial life. Europe has a gigantic saltwater ocean, which could be 64 to 168 km deep. This means that it could contain more water than all the oceans on Earth combined. But there is a big obstacle. This ocean is hidden under a thick layer of ice, which according to scientists is 16 to 32 km deep. Europe's ocean remains liquid due to the gravitational forces of Jupiter's gravitation. The huge plume of the planet stretches and squeezes the moon, causing friction, which heats up the interior and prevents the ocean from freezing completely. And the most exciting thing is that scientists believe that water flags may break out of cracks in Europe's ice and shoot ocean water into space. If this is true, we could possibly explore the ocean without having to drill through miles of ice. But there are still many unknowns. How large are Europe's water resources? How quickly do they freeze again? And how do the high temperatures and the pressure on the ice affect each other? Scientists are eager to find out, because Europe's ocean is considered one of the best opportunities to find extraterrestrial microorganisms in our solar system.